{"id":7587,"date":"2011-05-19T16:45:27","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T20:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=7587"},"modified":"2011-05-20T16:47:36","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T20:47:36","slug":"payne-general-mao-tors-nope-the-michigan-view-05-19-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/payne-general-mao-tors-nope-the-michigan-view-05-19-11","title":{"rendered":"Payne: General Mao-tors? Nope (The Michigan View 05.19.11)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“GM sponsors and celebrates soon to be released Chinese Communist Party propaganda film.”<\/p>\n

Now that is a blockbuster headline about a company 33 percent-owned by the U.S. taxpayer. Government Motors,\u00a0alleges<\/a> Washington Times reporter Kerry Picket, is glorifying China’s brutal communist history with your money.<\/p>\n

“In late 2010, General Motors agreed to sponsor a propaganda film celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” reports the Times. “The CCP-made film titled (translated to English) ‘The Birth of a Party’ . . . is set to premiere all over the Communist nation on June 15 reported China AutoWeb last September. The auto website adds: ‘According to an announcement posted on Shanghai GM’s official web site. . . Cadillac whole-heartedly supports the making of the Birth of a Party…'”<\/p>\n

Shocking stuff. Trouble is, the story isn’t true.<\/p>\n

“The sponsorship of the China Film Group was an independent decision made by Shanghai GM (SGM), one of the joint ventures that GM has with our Chinese partner SAIC,” reads a GM statement provided by Greg Martin, GM Director of Policy and Washington Communications. “It was part of a strategic alignment with the film industry, similar to alliances made by other companies. SGM sponsored the China Film Group that made this film. There are no Cadillac or other GM products featured in the movie.”<\/p>\n

As in most Chinese automotive corporate ventures, GM is partner in Shanghai GM along with a government-owned company (SAIC in this case). It was Shanghai GM \u2014 a partnership with SAIC \u2014 that made the decision to sponsor a film festival in which “Birth of a Party” is being shown. Martin says that the Times reporter failed to contact GM to clarify these key distinctions.<\/p>\n

To put the story in perspective: What if Opel were to sponsor a Nazi film festival? Now that would be a screaming scandal because the carmaker is a GM’s wholly-owned German subsidiary.<\/p>\n

But while the Times story doesn’t pan out, it is nevertheless a warning for Government Motors.<\/p>\n

Taxpayer equity comes with long strings attached \u2014 especially in the murky world of joint ventures with bad governments. Especially with bad governments that still harbor Nobel Peace Prize-winning as political prisoners. Indeed, China’s government structure today is closer to Nazi German fascism than ol’ Maoist communism.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that doing business in China involves some sticky government business. Such is the price of entry into the world’s fastest-growing consumer market. And increased scrutiny is the price of a federal bailout.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“GM sponsors and celebrates soon to be released Chinese Communist Party propaganda film.” Now that is a blockbuster headline about a company 33 percent-owned by the U.S. taxpayer. Government Motors,\u00a0alleges Washington Times reporter Kerry Picket, is glorifying China’s brutal communist history with your money. “In late 2010, General Motors agreed to sponsor a propaganda film […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7589,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7587\/revisions\/7589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}